We're having a heat wave...

..A tropical heat wave!
Oh man today was a doosie. It was a whopping 91 degrees at our casa, and did I mention its March? The week before this little heat wave we had rain storms and snow on the mountain, and it averaged in the low 60's. The heat + previous rain really has things popping up too. Like my fringed tulips that surprised me for the first time last year. From just 3 we now have 5!





Our lawn has also recently developed a bit of a weed problem, the spring time and warmth helped them to multiply and one section of the backyard was about 99% dandelions. I spent about 40 mins pulling those little nasty lawn squatters out. I filled my weeding bucket up 5 times, and we still have more.
This tool is pretty much the best thing ever for digging up a weed and its entire root. We got ours at Home Depot and I'll tell you we pretty much need two. Mr. B and I had contests last year seeing who could pull the most weeds in our spare time after work. I know pretty lame huh? But there is something satisfying about getting the whole thing out, almost like you are the winner in an odd game of Man vs Weed.

Pouf Love

Poufs may not be new to you or me, although 2 of them are brand new to our home. I have been lusting over the many designs of decorative poufs that retailers have been selling for quite some time. Yesterday I got us our very own poufs.
What is a pouf? Its like a stool, or cushion that is very firm and upholstered. They are really pretty popular as most furniture shops have a version or more, I find the different style options the best part. You can find one to go with any decor.

I picked these two heavy flat weave rug style upholstered poufs, a cube and a flat square.
Best of all they are really functional and comfortable. We needed a softer surface to sit on by the fireplace. The floor just wasn't cutting it.





Our new poufs are from a locally owned independent retailer, the only name on the tag is "Roost" and that it is a Just woven cover and filled with 90% wool and 10% cotton. After googling them the closest I could find was using the search term "kilim pouf". Check them out here and here, & here.


Here are some other Poufs that I love.

This is one of my favorites, this flax and ivory cotton zig zag is just so perfect.

Calypso St. Barth


Furry Poufs are becoming popular I have seen these on a few sites. This sheep skin one would be so soft!

West Elm


Oh so wonderful for an outdoor setting or a sun room, these are made from woven Jute.

Pottery Barn


Patterns and solids have a classic look.

West Elm


Okay this is adorable and pretty much awesome. It speaks to the Alice in all of us. It would be so cute in a child's room.

Anthropologie




Leather is a great choice for a covered Pouf, its durable and cleans well. I think the metalics are really fun, but they come is all colors of the rainbow.

Jonathan Alder

Slipcover in minutes

This little stool has been through a lot. After our home renovations especially our master bath & the need to stand on it while tiling has left some thin-set and grout stains that just won't come out. We do have a real step stool but in a pinch when both of us were tiling this little guy sure helped.


Well I walked by our guest bathroom today and saw it sitting there so sad and stained. I decided to make a little slipcover for it.
I had this fabric, which is just white linen that I painted with fabric paint. I painted it originally to make a decorative pillow, but the pattern clashed with our rug so its been sitting on my fabric pile for months.


I pinned it and stitched it up on my machine with a simple corner.




I think it adds some fun color and pattern to our fairly plain guest bath.
Which by the way this is the first time I have posted a picture of this room in our house. Its the only room that we really haven't done anything to since we moved in and painted. Its all original, so that's why I'm not showing it off. But the cute little stool helps, I think?

Tonight's looking blue

Well that's a good thing around here actually.
I just got a knock on the door from Mr. UPS and here is my new floor mat for our laundry hall.
I love it of course, and if it doesn't look familiar to you the zig zag blue is something I am making into a theme, here and here are two examples of why I just had to have it.

Zig Zag Jaipuri from Calypso St. Barth





Blueberries whats better? Blueberry muffins are according to Mr. B.
So with the beautiful blueberries that were on sale at our local organic mart I whipped up 6 fresh blueberry muffins that he and I are enjoying tonight.





Its cold and gray out there lately, not too many blue skies these days so lets hope for more blue tomorrow and maybe even a little sun?

What a Storm!

Holy canole what a Sunday morning!
We hardly slept last night as our home sounded like it was in a tornado from 2am on. The storm we got this morning really was a bad one, with wind, sideways rain and flooding. The gusts of wind were up to 75 mph, our oak tree out front held strong through another storm in its 600 year old life and it actually did a good job of clearing off some dead branches on its own.



Our guest home with new tenants, went from looking like this...



to this...


Well not quite, but we did need to make an emergency trip to the hardware store for 2 submersible water pumps, and rip up the carpet in 2 rooms and we will continue with the flood damage control this week. It was quite a morning.

Then we fitted Baxter with the "Cone of Shame" yep, he needs it. Hopefully his foot will heal now.


Hope all is as well as it can be with everyone in the rest of the country, and the world. We are very thankful for everything we have and we wish the best for all those effected in Japans earthquake.

Egg wreath

I have a thing for seasonal wreaths. A few years ago I would have never thought of hanging a wreath up other than on Christmas, but I have really caught the decorating bug and I will pretty much make up a reason now for a new wreath.
I saw a beautiful tutorial for an Easter Egg wreath on Crafty Sisters blog from last year. I got inspired and quickly dismantled this wreath from January, and ran out to the store.
I actually had most of the materials to pull this off, so while at the grocery store I picked up 2 bags of multi sized plastic eggs, the kind that open in the middle and then 2 bottles of acrylic paint & 1 can of white spray paint at the hardware store. The whole project cost me $14.00 without the other stuff I had on hand.
I used:
• Copious amounts of moss (I have a flat of it for planting and crafts)
• One 24 inch vine wreath (I made mine)
• 70 or so plastic eggs of varying sizes
• Acrylic paints
• White spray paint (I used matte finish white for plastic surfaces)
• Feathers
• Hot glue, lots of it.

Here is my wreath that I am reusing, I actually added more vines to it for this project. They are ivy vines from our backyard. The box to the left is filled with some moss.



I sprayed the bright colored eggs white, let them dry then brushed them with 2 coats of acrylic paint in natural egg colors. I was having a really hard time masking the seem where the eggs open. Unlike in the Crafty Sisters tutorial where you can barely see a seam, mine were quite obvious. So I sanded each one to minimize it, and to camouflage the seam further I sprayed them with speckles and that really did the trick.
In the tutorial link they use a toothbrush to speckle the eggs but I used an empty spray bottle filled with a little watered down brown paint. It worked great!



I kept spraying them till the seams were barely noticeable.


Then I got to gluing. Randomly positioning the eggs then when I was done with the eggs I filled every void by gluing moss in between. I then wove vines in and out of the wreath and finished it by adding feathers here and there.


Here you can see a close up of the feathers, I feel like it really give the wreath that nest feel.


Here it is hung up on our front door.





~Oh and so far today we got one of our new low profile fans up, this one is in my craft room. Its so much better than the previous fan and it makes the room seem larger because its so close to the ceiling. I love it!

Been Busy

The last couple days have been a nonstop crafting fest over here.
Today I whipped up this really cute milk bottle cookie mix thanks to Bakerella's recipe.
They are called "Cowgirl Cookies" and I'm giving them to a friend of mine for her bridal shower gift. She is a total cowgirl, and I just couldn't resist pairing this cute mix with her other baking oriented gift from her registry.
It's layers consist of flour with baking soda and power and salt, oats, pink and purple m&m's, chocolate chips, brown sugar, and chopped pecans. Yum!



I used a milk bottle, well because I have a bunch of them and although you are supposed to use a Ball jar I thought this little cow was just too cute not to use.



Yesterday I finished this very black and very red cake for a casino themed birthday party.


And tonight I just finished coating all these eggs (71 according to Rory) with paint for an Easter decor project I hope to be posting tomorrow.



What have you been up to?

Privacy glass?

We have this great big front door, actually only one side works the other is stationary. The problem is with these large front doors we have large panes of glass (4 - 24"x32") to be exact) that anyone can just walk up to and take a peek inside.
The glass is perfectly clear aside from the bits of dust I noticed while snapping these shots, so you can see right into our living room where we spend the majority of our evenings.
When people come up to the front door when its dark they can see us before we even know they are there.

Here is the dwelling area of Mr. & Mrs. B, you can observe them in their natural habitat at night...
..watch how they view Netflix and surf the web.


Here is the view of our front entrance table that I don't mind people seeing, but not the rest of the view.

I need a solution. What can I do to this glass that won't look awful?
I'm not putting curtains on them, no way! That excludes shades and blinds too.
I can't imagine frosted glass looking good, do you think?
I love the look of seedy glass, but how much is that going to cost to replace!?!?
I would love to pick out new front doors completely but we are not ready to take that on, plus when I mentioned it Mr. B said he would like to build new front doors from scratch, so with all the other projects he has that might be a while.

Please let me know your opinion and any ideas!

Baxter's poor toe

He ripped most of his front pinkie toenail off on Friday. We don't know how he did it, but as soon as I went to feed him I noticed his foot was covered in blood, he just wanted to eat and didn't even seem to notice it, but we took him next door to our Vet/Tenant who said we should soak it, keep it clean and watch for infection.
So I have been watching it, soaking it in betadine solution, putting doggie neosporin on it, wrapping it in gauze and vet wrap.
It's pretty nasty looking, but I think it will grow back. If you want to see a photo of it up close and in all it's bloodiness click Here. But I'm warning ya! Its gross.

He was not a fan of the new green boot, but it helps him walk on it and keeps it clean. When I take it off he tends to lick at it. It looks pretty painful and he is really uncomfortable when I have to clean it, so I know it hurts.
Poor pup, but we found a cheap and easy solution to fix his little situation.


Here is is tonight all tuckered out from hours of playing with his new hedgehog buddy. He actually fell asleep with his new toy and his good arm on it (notice the couch covered with blankets to protect it from blood) he is just so cute!